I feel like an idiot…

So I’ve spent countless hours researching different coins to invest in recently. Coins that offer Proof of Stake and Masternodes have really taken my interest. And I’ve found some great coins to invest in amongst the utter crap that you’ll find in the vast sea of coins out there.

I had some basic criteria as to what the coin must provide in order for me to be interested in investing in it. And if these boxes were ticked I’d continue my research into the coin before investing.

Relatively stable price;

Listed on a decent number of exchanges in addition to some good exchanges;

Good team behind the coin;

A good community supporting the coin;

A solid purpose for the coin i.e. what problem does it solve?

Ability to offer a reliable and passive income stream.

The thing is, Steem ticks all of these boxes and then some. I’ve always known this, but I hadn’t really considered that what I was searching for all this time was essentially another Steem.

Image courtesy of @gamani who probably stole it from somewhere else

Price

We all know that the crypto market is in full bear mode right now. So while Steem has been on a southward trend, so has the whole market. And when we get that occasional green day, Steem is one of the coins that typically shows a decent recovery.

Exchanges

Steem is listed on all the exchanges that I need access to – Binance, Bittrex, and numerous others. This makes it easy for me to convert my Steem and SBD to other currencies or Fiat.

To date, I haven’t converted my Steem and SBD to Fiat but I have converted a portion to other currencies such as BTC, EOS and IOTA. My goal is to have a Steem funded and nicely diverse portfolio of crypto, but with Steem as my greatest holding. And I’m making some decent progress here, hence my research into other coins lately.

The Team

You’ll always get people banging on about how little Steemit Inc do and the mistakes they make, but at the end of the day I see that they are continually working on the blockchain and I’ve even been fortunate enough to speak with some of the Steemit Inc team members.

I have a lot of confidence in the Steemit Inc team and the potential of the Steem Blockchain. So I’m happy here.

Search pixabay.com for “smart people” and this is what you get

Purpose

If you don’t know the purpose of the Steem blockchain and currency then perhaps you should do a little reading. There is huge potential for the Steem blockchain and currency, just look at how insanely massive @steemmonsters has gotten… I never saw that coming.

A Passive Income Stream

And this is probably the thing that has me most excited and the one thing that made me realise how stupid my search was for a passive income stream in the crypto market.

The more Steem Power I hold, the greater my passive income stream becomes. So why the hell would I send my Steem off to the exchanges when I can simply generate that passive income right here?

There are so many options for a passive income stream on Steemit. You just have to know where to look.

If only it were that easy

Delegating to the bid bots

This is often one of the first methods that people think of when looking for a smart use of their Steem Power. And it could be a great option for you. You can earn anywhere between 15% to 30% return via delegating to these bots. But, personally, this is not what I want to do.

I understand the purpose and benefits of a bid bot, but I don’t want to give them access to my Steem Power. I’d much rather use other strategies to generate my passive income.

Lease your Steem Power

Leasing your Steem Power makes sense to me. There are a few ways you can do this. The one that I am most familiar with is via Minnowbooster however you can also lease your Steem Power via Smartsteem. Once you have created your account with Minnowbooster you can look through the available Steem Power leases available, and if you choose to, you can lease out your Steem Power to another Steemit user. The period of time of leases can vary, as with the anticipated earnings.

Sell your vote

This is something that I have done for a long time. And I currently do it via Minnowbooster. Smartsteem also offer this service, and I’ve very recently started testing them out. For both Minnowbooster and Smartsteem, if you sell your vote you earn 85% of the profit in addition to your usual curation rewards.

From my experience, and a common recommendation by both services, is that you really should only sell a small percentage of your vote. I only sell up to 25% of my voting power. This allows me to still upvote the content posted by the people who I follow and upvote comments on my posts. I have sold 100% of my voting power in the past, at a time when I needed to earn some quick SBD, but it takes way too long for your voting power to recover to make it worthwhile.

The biggest benefit of selling my vote is that if I cannot log on to Steemit for a period of time, I know that my voting power is being used and I am earning a small passive income from my Steem Power. It’s a brilliant service, and one that I will continue to use for a long time.

Delegate to an App, Service or Community

Some apps, services and communities will reward those who delegate to them. Not all of these are passive income streams but the rewards can be great.

For example, the @minnowsupport project will give you upvotes on your content if you delegate to them. And if you delegate to @dtube you receive a passive income in the form of delegator rewards.

Courtesy of @minnowsupport

Summary

This is far from a comprehensive write up as to what you can do with your Steem Power in order to start generating a passive income stream.

I like to control my Steem Power as much as possible so I don’t delegate anything personally (other than a short term delegation to @cyclefeed), I only sell 25% of my voting power. And I also like my vote to mean something to the people who interact with my content and the people who I follow. If I delegated most of my Steem Power my vote would return to 1 cent again which wouldn’t be much fun for anyone concerned.

But the point is, regardless of how I choose to utilise my Steem Power, I am able to earn a passive income stream by making smart use of it. And that passive income is quite likely higher than what most other currencies out there are offering.

And earning this passive income much simpler too. I don’t have to set up a masternode. I don’t have to set up a mining rig in my house. And I don’t have to run the risk of sending my coins to an unknown wallet to be part of a shared masternode service as well.

So make smart use of your available Steem Power. Grow it as effectively and quickly as you can. It will only benefit you in the long term.

How are you currently using your Steem Power? Tell me about it in the comments.